BETTER WITH FOUR

Chapter Eighteen

The Doctor was in a silly mood. He and his three companions had just battled the Ice Warriors and were resting up before their next adventure. The three women had gone into the living room to watch TV while the Doctor chose to read in his library. But he soon became bored and his bored mind began to think of mischief and pranks he could pull on the women in his life. He thought about what would be the most fun to do and then a smile slowly spread over his face. He glanced up at his ship and told her his idea. The TARDIS rumbled, nudged his mind and telepathically agreed to be his partner in crime. Knowing his ship was on his side, he then hurried off to find his three victims.

The three women sat side by side on the sofa enjoying Eastenders when suddenly the Doctor hurried into the room, waving his arms around frantically.

"Doctor, what is it?" Rose said.

The Doctor pointed to his mouth.

"What about it?" Donna asked.

He opened his mouth but instead of English an incomprehensible language spilled out. The three women stared at him in silent confusion.

"What?" Donna finally said.

He held up his finger and then dug inside his pocket. He took out a pen and a pad of paper and jotted down a note. He handed it to Rose and Donna and Martha read it with her.

The TARDIS translation circuits are malfunctioning. Therefore, I cannot speak to you in English as I normally would. I must write down what I'm saying because you will only hear my native Gallifreyan until I can repair it.

The three women were taken aback.

"Hold up, you mean all this time you've been speaking Gallifreyan and the TARDIS has been translating it into English for us?" Martha asked.

The Doctor nodded.

"You don't know English?" Martha said with a raised eyebrow.

The Doctor jotted down another note and passed it to them.

Not well enough to have a full conversation with you.

"Okay, so you're just gonna write notes until this translation circuit is fixed, yeah?" Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. He wrote another note and gave it to her.

Sorry. This is all I can do at the moment. I just wanted to make you aware of the situation. Now I'm off to fix it. Bye.

With that, he turned and went back out the door. The women watched him go and waited till he was out of earshot.

"All this time we've been listening to the TARDIS translating?" Rose said to the others. "I thought he said he knew how to speak every language fluently."

"So did I," Donna said. "Maybe we just thought he did because he's so good at languages and..."

Just then, they heard an alarm go off.

"Oh, blast, now what?" Rose said as they leapt up and sped out of the room.

They found the Doctor in the console room. He was waving his arms frantically.

"What? What is it?" Rose said, running up to him.

The Doctor pointed towards the door.

"What?" Donna said. "What are you trying to say?"

The Doctor said something in Gallifreyan while he jabbed his finger repeatedly at the door.

"Write it down!" Martha said.

The Doctor shook his head. The three women stood and watched, perplexed, as the Doctor ran to the door, pointed at it and ran back to them. He then stared at them waiting for the confused women to get his meaning. When they didn't, he threw his arms up in the air, ran back over to the door, pointed at it, ran back to them, pointed at his ass, pointed at the ceiling and then put his hands on his hips and tapped his foot while he waited for them to respond.

"Doctor, write down what you mean!" Rose said to him.

The Doctor shook his head, grabbed the pen and paper and frantically jotted down a note. He gave it to Rose.

I don't have time to write a note. Just watch what I do.

They looked at him and he ran to the door, pointed to it, ran back, pointed to his ass, pointed to the ceiling and then did a little jig in front of them before he stood still with hands on hips and an annoyed expression on his face.

"We don't understand!" Donna said angrily.

The Doctor sighed angrily. He opened his mouth to speak and the three women were surprised when they heard him say

"HEE-HAW, HEE-HAAAAAAAAAW!"

The women looked at each other while he continued to bray like a donkey and repeat the same gestures. After a couple minutes of this, Donna sighed angrily.

"Come on, girls, back to the living room. Let the Doctor sort this out on his own," she said.

"HEE-HAW!" the Doctor brayed angrily.

He ran in front of them when they started moving towards the back door. He glared at them.

"QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!" he said when he opened his mouth. "MOOOOOOO, ARF ARF, MEOW, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The three women were stunned at the rapid succession of animal noises that were coming from the pissed off Doctor's mouth. On top of the barnyard noises, he was still pointing to the door, his ass, the ceiling, his crotch and his nose. While he kept on doing that, the barnyard noises became jungle sounds as he let out a roar, screech, hoot and bellow. By now, the three women couldn't do anything except stand in front of him and stare in a dumb silence. The Doctor was dancing around now whinnying and hooting like an ape as he flung his arms around and kicked his legs out. Then finally he stopped and with hands on hips, waited for their response. He looked at the stunned and confused expressions on their faces and finally burst out laughing.

"Oh, blimey, you oughta see the looks on your faces," he said to them in English.

"Wait, that was English. The translation circuits are repaired now?" Martha said.

"They were never messed up to begin with. I was just bored and thought I'd have a bit of fun so the TARDIS and I punked you in layman's terms. I can speak all the languages in the universe fluently so there's no need for me to rely on the translation circuits. Those are mainly for you and others we come into contact with."

He burst out laughing again as he reached over to the console and switched off the alarm.

"But I had you goin', didn't I? Oh, you were just stone face. You didn't know what I was on about, did ya? And you just stood there and completely accepted all the strange noises and gestures I made. Ooooooh, blimey, you three are just the thing when I need a little lift in my spirits. You'll believe anything and everything I do and say. I just love your naivete and innocence so much."

He let out a sigh of relief and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Well, gotta go to the loo now before I wet myself. I laughed so hard I nearly wet my underpants. Anyway, you can go back to whatever it was you were doing and I'll see you later. Ta-ta."

Whistling, the Doctor ignored the looks of death his three companions were giving him and sauntered away towards the back door. They waited till he was out of earshot and then Donna looked at her friends.

"Right, revenge time, girls. Let's go think of a way to get back at the little comedian," she said.

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